The Dreamers
by The Lady Arianrod
Summary: The summer nights were endless in New York, and a waltz was always playing. They were all lost in the game of the twenties." Prose in Nick's POV.


Memory Blues by the Lady Arianrod

a/n: Another Gatsby fic from me.... this time it's a little soliloquy from Nick's POV after the novel and the funeral.

Disclaimer: Again, Fitzgerald owns this work of genius known as the Great Gatsby.

  
  


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Sometimes I'll be walking down the roads of this small town and look behind me, expecting to see the city. I can still envision the harbor and the blur of traffic.... and that one green light. 

Sure, it was all five or six years ago, maybe even seven years, since that whole adventure on the Eastern coast. Those people and those events have stayed in my mind, even if they are now well-worn fragments of memory. 

Sometimes I think that it never happened, this whole mess with Gatsby. Maybe that insane millionaire is still alive, and he still is reaching towards that green light. Maybe I never even met the fellow and maybe I never even got involved in this affair. 

I have to blink and pinch myself, swearing that I do not still hear a saxophone playing the Beale Street Blues or that I don't feel the rush of traffic on my right and left. I am in the Midwest, in my hometown. 

The city was all a dream. 

Maybe I created the entire scenario, those summer parties with the millionaire guests. They came with their full purses and empty hearts to that mansion owned by Gatsby, some character in the dream world. He had aspirations of his own, but his wishes were impossible. 

Even in a dream world you cannot repeat the past. 

Even so, that fool whom I still do not approve of pushed to the very end to attain what he could not. Like summer fading into autumn, the dream disappeared and lost its reality. Gatsby saw the gold melt from his beautiful Daisy and, as he died, saw the cold reality of this world of shadows. 

Still, I cannot help but wonder why I had to travel to New York and befriend this fellow. Was it destiny that I would meet someone with such ridiculous outfits, mannerisms, and dreams? Most likely, yes. The Lady Fate shoved me into a little house next to his for a reason. 

I still cannot determine this reason, but I do know that I saw many things. I saw the lives of the rich. Now, my family is quite wealthy, but I saw the empty opulence of these distant guests, these passing moments on the sundial of life. 

Gatsby looked above these people with his naïve eyes and child's excitement. He looked ever across the Sound, always to that sacred, hidden valley that was marked by an emerald gem for the world to see. 

There, within the chrysalis of Old Wealth, lie his Daisy, the graceful and distant flower that ever seemed to bend towards the sun..... and he was a simple, lowly ant trying to peer into this lofty face. 

That poor fool. He was so caught up the waltz that he forgot that the dance must end. Gatsby still kept dancing past the belle of the ball, repeating the steps: one, two,one, two. He danced like he had in days gone by. 

Gatsby did not realize that the belle had already switched dancing partners long ago. He was too far across the room so she grabbed the nearest young man next to her. 

That man was Tom Buchanan, and he lead her in a half-hearted waltz for a while. Gatsby kept trying to steal his partner throughout the night, approaching her with the tempo of their dance from an earlier time. Daisy, the belle of the ball, smiled at him but simply turned her head to her new dance partner, not looking back at the poor, lone dancer.

When the waltz was over, Daisy left the room with Tom and Gatsby stood alone in the dark, silent room. It was all over, and this time, he knew it. 

I will never look at a waltz in the same way. Those beautiful dances are much like those faces from my past: mesmerizing, seemingly everlasting, but actually short-lived and fickle. 

I vowed that I would never go back East again, never to see that city or hear that jazz. I will never live another summertime dream, nor will I witness the grand visions of the blind. 

I am convinced that no funeral happened. No murders, no parties, no affairs, and no waltzes ever occurred in my past.

It was all a dream. 

In a way, I am sad for them, these players in the game of the twenties. But I cannot dwell in the past, for it has already gone by. 

For now, I will look towards the future. I will live my life. 

And one of these fine mornings, I'll actually reach that elusive future that the dreamers could not grasp. 

  
  


End. 

  
  


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end notes: I love the Great Gatsby, and I would enjoy reviews on this weird little prose/Nick POV thing. Review!

  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  



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